Was there a solar eclipse that a south-central Pennsylvania school child might have seen around 1935? First, my apologies to the gentleman who asked this question at our pre-eclipse show on August 13. He remembers smoking glass in prepartion for viewing the event. [Don’t do this, kids! Keep your quality-controlled, ISO-certified solar glasses.] Anyway, I intended to post an answer that week, but before I could research, NASA redirected all its web eclipse traffic to their “eclipse 2017” site. But now the information is back. Here is the map of North American total eclipses of the sun from 1901-1950.
So there was no total eclipse in south-central PA through the whole period. The famous New York total eclipse of 1925 would have been partial here, but surely too early for our audience member’s recollection. For further data we can turn to NASA’s online JAVASCRIPT SOLAR ECLIPSE EXPLORER. It’s fun! And it reveals three or four candidates. The August 31, 1932 eclipse (path of totality on the map above) would have been 88% partial here, so that is a possibility. Next chronologically is a partial eclipse on February 3, 1935. With 31% obscuration it’s worth observing and it’s the year our guest remembered. On April 19, 1939 locals would have seen an 8% obscured sun. I am not sure that would have been worth getting school kids exicted about. Finally April 7, 1940 brought an annular eclipse to some parts of the country. It would have been 61% partial in south central Pennsylvania.
I hope this helps, sir!
